Deliver Us From Evil
by BestGirlsLoadedGun
Summary: She woke up, not knowing her name, or where she was from. They found her. Eva knows there has to be an answer somewhere, just like her strange new friends.
1. Chapter 1

"_Ma'am? Can you hear me?" _the voice came from the murky darkness swimming above my brain. I struggled through the warmth of the darkness to the voice.

"_She's moving," _someone else said. _"Ma'am, don't move too much, you could have a broken bone."_

"You know," I managed to mumble while struggling to sit up. "I really resent that whole 'ma'am' thing."

"Okay, fine, miss. Please stay still." there was a heavy hand gently on my sternum. I laid back on the coolness against my back. "I really have to look at your wrist, this might hurt a bit."

"Who are you, and where am I?" I cracked open my eyes. A bright, white light blinded me, and I clamped them shut again. There was a dank smell, and that coolness. I didn't know this place, and though I didn't know much, I could understand that.

"My name is Donnie," the first voice said. "I really must ask that you remain still." a hot pain shot up my arm. I couldn't help but to throw my head back and howl. "Yeah, this is broken. Go and get me the splint and wraps."

"What's broken?" I gasped, feeling a sweat breaking out across my forehead. "And I know your name but I don't know who you are."

"I'm a friend. We're all friends." the second voice said. I cracked my eyes open again. Instead of being blinded, I just had a splitting headache. I stared into the face of the—thing-hovering in front of me.

"Oh, I must be having a godawful nightmare." I whispered. He was green, he had a shell, he was lacking the amount of fingers that would have made him human. But never before in my nightmares had the monsters done anything kind for me.

"Blood pressure rising." the other monster was leaning over my arm. "Calm her down, Leo."

"Miss, miss," the first one was trying to sound soothing, trying to keep my from panicking. "We're not what we look to be."

"Oh, really? Because you look like you're some kind of talking green animal, and that's really freaking me out." I jerked my arm away from their ministrations, crying out again as I did so. I rolled away, the rough cement scraping at my knees. I scrambled to my feet, cradling my broken arm.

"You're not human.

"No strictly speaking." Donnie, I think that was his name, was wearing a purple cloth around his eyes. "We're turtles."

"Oh hell no," I backed away, my knees shaking. "This is just not possible. There is no way this is possible."

"Believe it." I bumped into something solid behind me. From the gravelly tone of the voice, I had to assume it wasn't the wall.

I slowly turned, mindful of my arm. I stared at another one. These were larger than life, obviously having some kind of intelligence, and I was stranded with them. I glanced over my shoulder at the first two, one in purpose, the other blue. The one I bumped into was in red.

"This isn't real." I wanted to run, but my legs were frozen. My arm ached and burned, and I felt my lips go numb. My knees crumpled and I was back on the floor before I could say anything else.


	2. Baby, Did You Take Your Meds

Donatello looked at the girl in a pale pile on the floor. He sighed and glared at his temperamental brother.

"You know that was not a good idea, don't you? She could go into shock if we're not careful." he lifted her arm again and started to fit the splint against her arm. He knelt next to her, careful not to jar her.

"It didn't look to me like she was doing too good there anyway, Don." Raph growled as he put the toothpick back between his teeth. Donnie just shook his head as he began to wind bandaging around the splint.

"How is the girl?" Splinter stepped quietly in the room. "Not so well, I see." he looked at her on the floor. "Michelangelo, please go and get a pillow and blanket."

"We could just move her. You know, to my bed." the smallest turtle grinned.

"Shut up, Mikey!" his three brothers said in unison. He sighed and shuffled off towards his room.

"How come we never put the girl in my room? How come Donnie always gets to hover over the girl? I don't get it. Man, I'm cool." Mikey mumbled to himself.

"Was she able to tell you her name?" Splinter stared at the girl intently.

"No, Sensei." Leo looked up from where his spot kneeling near her on the floor. "All we found was this." he held out a thick metal chain.

The rat took it, letting the warm metal slide between his fingers. Warm from her body. The metal was worn in places. Her healthy wrist had indentations on the fleshy underside. There was a wide plate with the name 'Eva' stamped onto it, and the numbers 742.

"Strange. Most ID bracelets that women wear are slender, they're jewellry."

"This looks like it's something—well, a little more sinister, doesn't it?" Donnie looked anxious as he cut the bandaging and taped it down.

"That's about the best I can do right now. We're going to have to wait for April to come in tomorrow to see what else we can do about it. I don't know how bad the break is without x-rays."

"Are we getting an x-ray machine?" Mikey came in, holding out his fluffy pillow and warmest blanket. "That would be awesome."

"No, numb nuts." Raphael stepped forward to help Leo lift the girl without disturbing her arm. She whimpered in her sleep, her cracking open. He pressed a hand to her forehead, feeling her relax against it.

"Do you think her name is Eva, or is she from a place called Eva?" Leo fussed with the blanket.

"Maybe it's an address, but I've never heard of street called Eva here in New York. And we'd be the ones to know." Donatello mused. He silently walked towards the bank of computers and began typing.

"Holy shit," I reached for my arm. "It hurts."

"It's gonna." there was that gravelly voice again. But when I opened my eyes, I was met with darkness. I could smell the dank smell, so I knew I must be in the same place. Someone was walking towards me, and I sank back against the pillow.

"You're fine," he sounded frustrated.

"Obviously not," I was able to gasp out. "How fine could I possibly be if I'm here and there seem to be talking, walking, giant turtles wandering about?"

"Fair enough," there was a rattle. I'd heard a rattle like that before. I could taste bile rising in the back of my throat.

"No," my eyes were adjusting to the darkness, and I could see two small white circles in his big green palm.

"No, I won't swallow those."

"They're for your pain." he sounded both annoyed and perplexed.

"I said no!" my voice cracked and I tried to scramble away from him, my legs getting tangled in the blanket. "I said I don't want them! You can't make me."

"All right, all right. Fine, whatever. Stay awake all night in misery." he backed away. I continued to try and back away. "Kid, I said it's fine. Don't take the pills, it makes no difference to me. It just would have stopped your whining."

"I don't believe you." hot tears stung my eyes in spite of myself. I swiped at them, angry at the way they blurred my vision and at myself for even letting them rise.

He was silent, watching me. I couldn't see his eyes, but I could feel the weight of them pressing against my throat. I felt more than heard him sinking back down to the floor. The burning returned to my arm as I laid back. I squeezed my eyes tight and tried to will the pain away.


	3. Wake Me Up

"I can't find any street or business named Eva, or with those initials or anything." Donnie reported in the morning. He had tried, after running his internet search, to relieve Raphael from sitting next to the girl.

To his surprise, Raphael had made her a more comfortable nest. He could have moved her to the small cot, but he seemed afraid of touching her for some reason. When he had quietly approached and whispered that Raph could go to bed, he had been dismissed by a wave of the hand.

"No reason more than one of us should have to sit around and watch her. You go ahead and go to bed. I'm fine. She hasn't moved much anyway."

Perplexed, but not upset, Donatello had slipped off to bed for a few hours of restless sleep. He had tossed and turned, worried about infection, shock, or the bone healing poorly. These were the times that he was angry at the way they looked. He was afraid on some level they were putting the girl in danger by not taking her to the hospital.

"Where, exactly, did you find her?" Splinter blew across a cup of tea and sipped, looking at his braniac son over the rim of the cup.

"There were Foot members outside of this warehouse. We got there, and she was just laying there, already passed out." Leo supplied as he buttered some toast. "We didn't know what else to do, it was so getting close to dawn, and we were afraid that someone would see us if we took her to the hospital. And we couldn't just leave her outside of a place. Donnie said she could have had a head injury."

"I'm not questioning what you did, Leonardo." Splinter reached out and put his hand on top of his son's. "Relax, you have not disappointed me."

"How was she?" Mikey looked up from his Cap'n Crunch as Raph came stumbling in. His eyelids were heavy and he stretched his arms high above his head.

"Refused pain meds. Spent the night tossing and turning. I tried to make her comfortable, but I don't think much I did helped." he plopped down at the table and opened a package of Pop Tarts. He eyed Donnie darkly before taking one and beginning to eat slowly.

"Refused the meds? Why?" Leo looked confused.

"I dunno, but she freaked out and said she wouldn't do it. Seemed to really bother her. I mean, she tried to scoot really far away from me, like she was afraid I would try and shove them down her throat or something." he shrugged.

"Okay, I guess I don't blame her, if a giant mutant tried to hand me something I'm not sure I would go ahead and pop that in my mouth either." Mikey piped up. They stared at him for a moment. "Hey, I have a point!"

"Good morning, guys!" April chriped as she walked in.

"Good morning, beautiful!" Mikey grinned. "Hey, Raph's got a girlfriend in case you wanna have someone to do girly stuff with."

"She is not my grirlfriend!" a blush rose on Raphael's cheeks.

"Well, you stayed up all night with her, didn't you?" Mikey teased. He ducked as a plastic cup came flying at his head.

"Who? What's going on?" April looked towards Donnie. "Who is he talking about?"

"We found a girl last night, and she had a broken arm, and we brought her back here. But maybe she needs to go to the hospital." he shrugged.

"Who is she?" April looked interested.

"We have no idea." Leo sighed.

"Hey," a hand was on my shoulder, shaking gently. My mouth tasted like sandpaper, and I could barely drag my eyelids open.

"Who are you?" she was young, pretty, and most importantly was not a giant talking turtle.

"My name is April. I'm a friend. I know you're freaked out, and I know you don't understand much of what's going on right now. But I need you to concentrate and think really hard, okay?" she paused.

"What's your name?"

"I don't remember." I swallowed. "I don't remember my name or anything else."


	4. Gimme The News

"I said I don't remember!" I was sitting at a kitchen table. None of the chairs matched, and I could tell the legs had been fixed several times. The turtles were around, along with the red headed girl. They were all watching me intently, something that made my heart pound in my chest.

"Be calm, child." the talking rat has his hands around a cup of tea. There was one in front of me, but I refused to touch it. I didn't want to touch anything that they had offered me. Although it did smell good, a warm richness that seeped into my nose. I bet it would have been delicious.

"But you keep asking me the same things! I keep telling you I don't know. I don't know where I got the bracelet, I don't know my name, and I don't know where I came from. Why is that so hard to believe?" tears were stinging my eyes, and I inhaled deeply to try and pull them back.

"We believe you," the girl, April, said softly. "We're just trying to help you out."

"But there's nothing to help. Can someone rewrap my arm and then I can leave?"

"I don't think any of us are comfortable with sending you out." the turtle with the blue headthingy frowned.

"Not until we can figure out how bad the break in her arm is. I can't tell if it's a greenstick-." the glasses one, Donnie, frowned at me too. My heartrate increased.

"I can't stand it in here anymore, please." I appealed to April. "Please, can't you take me out of here? I might not know my name, but I'm pretty sure talking turtles and rats don't really exist."

"I hate to tell you, but there's much more to this world than you really know." she looked at me with empathy on her face.

"I'm sorry."

I couldn't stand looking at them for one more minute. I snatched up the bracelet the rat had slid before me. I turned it in my hands, my fingers running across the rough engraving. Eva. It wasn't written like a code. It looked almost like a name. When I looked up, I realized the one in red was watching me, rolling the toothpick around in his mouth. I held the bracelet tightly in my palm.

"Why don't we send you to a doctor?" he asked suddenly. I almost jumped at the sound of his voice. I looked at him carefully and nodded slowly.

"And then once we figure out what to do about your arm, we'll take it from there."

"She needs a name." the orange one cocked his head to one side.

"Eva," the rat stood up. "The child is Eva. It's already on the bracelet, we can all remember." he grabbed a walking stick.

"Do you know of a suitable place to take her, April?"

"There's a homeless clinic I know about. We did a story on them last month. Donation only. They don't need a Social Security number or anything." she stood up and started putting on her jacket.

"Take her there. Bring her back quick." the toothpick was out of his mouth.

"Sure Raph,"

"So here's a funny question." I sat back on the subway car, my arm in a sling made from a pillowcase.

"How does a perfectly lovely girl like you end up with a crowd of talking-," she shot me a quick look, her eyes roving around the almost empty car.

"It's a long story." she sighed. "I knew them when I was small. Before they're what you see now. That's about all I can really tell you. But, Eva, they're not as frightening as you think. They're like my family. They're really good guys."

I looked out the window at the stations speeding by. I twisted my wrist, feeling the cool metal pressing against me. So rescuing me was good. Being a giant talking turtle could be filed in the bad column, but I supposed it was likely I was just misunderstanding some things. They said they found me fighting some band of criminals, so it was good that they were fighting evil. If what they said was evil was really evil. It could all just be a misunderstanding. There was so much about this that I just did not understand. Not even begin to understand.

In silence, we got off the subway together and went up the steps towards a small but dignified looking clinic.

To her credit, April held my hand while the fresh faced doctor probed my arm. She held my coat, a worn but warm cast off Donnie had lent me, while they took me to x-ray. I bit down on my lip hard as the tech manipulated my arm to get all the pictures she needed.

I hated the smell of the clinic. It crawled into my sinuses and burned. Goosebumps had risen against my flesh, and I wanted the coat badly. Although the doctors' hands were gentle, I hated the feeling of someone touching me at all.

We waited in the cold sterility of the tiny examination room. April walked over to me, and ever so gently, put her hand on the back of my head. I looked up at her with what I hoped weren't pitiful eyes. For some reason, people being kind to me hurt.

Right now, the whole world hurt.

"Simple break, no surgery. But she will need to rest it and be in the cast for six weeks." April reported to the turtles when she and the girl had come back. She'd been given a bottle of pain killers. To April's surprise, she hadn't flinched when the doctor casted her.

"Well, that's fairly simple." Donnie sighed with relief.

Eva was laying on a couch that Raph had made up with sheets, and his favorite pillow and blanket. She'd taken the pills herself without anyone encouraging her. He sat in a chair, watching television, though not too far from her. She slept awkwardly, the injured arm splayed out, her long dark hair falling into her face.

"What do we do with her now?" Mikey looked at Splinter. "Can we keep her?"

"She's not a pet, she's a person." their sensei looked at the couch, and his almost antisocial son sitting near the girl.

"But I don't think the time is right to send her out. Not yet. Perhaps in time."


	5. Goodnight

awoke again that night, pins and needles running up my arm. I sat up, pressing my palm to my forehead. The room was dark, and as I tried to stand, I found it hard to orient myself to the room. I carefully stuck out my` foot to pick my way towards where I thought the kitchen was.

I almost cried out in pain when my big toe struck something big and solid. I gasped and hopped backwards on one foot.  
>"What? Wassermatter?" a huge shadow rose in front of me. I squealed in surprise and tried to jump backwards. But with my wounded toe, I stumbled against a foot stool and fell backwards.<p>

"My toe! My ass!" I gasped. The shadow loomed over me, and I realised it was Raphael. We stared at each other for a moment before he bent down and set me on my feet before I could protest.

"Did you need something, Eva?" his voice wasn't rough, but it wasn't exactly polite either. I shook my head and turned to go back to my bed.

"Wait," one hand fell heavily on my shoulder. "It's time for your next dose. Stay here." steered me to a footstool and sat me down.

I resented the treatment, but the throbbing in my arm compelled me not to argue too much. He handed me a pill and a glass of water. I stared at him a moment. I hadn't even asked for water, and I knew I could swallow the pills dry. But it was a nice thing to do, and my throat was burning from the dryness.

As soon as the glass was empty, he refilled it for me. The water was sweet and cold, and much more than I had ever expected from the sewer. I handed him the empty glass and even smiled a little. He looked at me for a moment, his eyes slightly narrowed.

"Do you need something else? Were you supposed to take those with food or is it okay to take them alone?"

"It's fine," but I didn't move to go back to bed, and he didn't move to go back to the recliner he had been sleeping in. We stood and contemplated one another in the dark.

"You're shivering." he murmured. I hadn't realized it, but it was true. Goosebumps had risen on my bare arms, and my knees shook slightly. "Go lay down, I'll get you something."

I headed back to bed, curling up on the thin mattress, my knees up to my chest. He came back, walking surprisingly softly for someone so large. He draped an extremely soft, extremely warm blanket over me. Ever so gently, he pulled the blanket up towards my chin and smoothed it down over my side.

"Oh this is wonderful." I said softly, my eyelids feeling heavy again.

"It's my favorite." Raphael's mouth was moving again, but I couldn't concentrate enough to listen. The pills were easing my pain, and I let my eyes close.

Raphael knew she was sleeping, and knew it was kind of weird, but he stood next to her bed. He watched her sleeping, her broken arm carefully held away from her body. His hand rested close to her healthy one. Her hair, long and brown, was spread out on her pillow. It was starting to tangle, he could tell, she needed a brushing. But it could wait until tomorrow, when April came in.

It was his favorite blanket. One April had given him shortly after they met. There was nothing like curling up with it after a rough fight. It was one of the few things that seemed to give comfort to his aching bones and sore muscles. Sometimes he had a hard time sleeping without it.

In light of that, it may have seemed strange that he had let Eva use it. But it gave him some kind of warm feeling, deep in his chest. Quietly, he turned to walk away, to head back to the recliner to sleep. It wasn't the most comfortable, but it was close to her in case she needed something. While they could have taken shifts, he wanted to be the one to be near her. He wanted to be the one to get her something if she needed it.

Before he could lift his hand, hers grabbed it. Her fingers tightened around his, and she sighed, obviously falling deeper into sleep. He stood frozen. Frantically, he tried to pull his hand away. Her grip just tightened.

Unsure what to do, he sank to the floor, letting her hold onto his hand. Raphael's eyes closed, and he drifted into a light doze.


	6. Pretty Girl Is Suffering

Splinter came out early the next morning. Out of habit, he headed first for the tea kettle to get his first cup of the day ready. It took him a few moments to look at the recliner. Finding it empty and cold, he frowned. He turned to look at their house guest and froze when he saw her hand wrapped around his son's.

"Oh, Raphael. Out of all of them, it had to be you, didn't it?" he murmured softly.

Raph's head was against the bed. Eva had rolled towards him, their fingers wound together. Splinter could only contemplate them with a sigh. He reached out and put one hand on his child's shoulder. He shook lightly, carefully, not wanting to disturb the girl.

"Hmm?" his head lifted. The turtle jumped and looked guiltily at Eva and then at his sensei. "I can explain."

"There isn't anything to explain." Splinter headed for the table and beckoned the turtle follow. Raph carefully stood up, gently pulled his hand away. The girl stirred faintly in her sleep, but only pulled the blanket higher on her before becoming still again.

"She isn't ours, you know that, don't you?"

"What do you mean, Sensei?"

"I mean," Splinter poured two cups of tea. "That someday we're going to have to send her back where she comes from. She belongs to someone, Raphael. And I'm sure that they miss her."

"No," Raphael's hand tightened on his tea cup. "No, they can't miss her. If someone really missed her, we would have heard about it by now. If someone loved her, they would have put up posters. They would have been looking for her. There's no one looking for her, there's no one that loves her."

Both of them were hearing the words that weren't being said. There was no one that loved her—except for Raph himself. Splinter rubbed his forehead. His eyes wandered over to the girl, sleeping delicately and innocently.

"My son, I know that you're lonely. You've always been different from your brothers in that regard. You've always felt your difference sharper than them. You don't seek comfort in them, or in me. And I am not angry about it, I understand." he put his hand on top of his son's. "But please try to remember that she may never feel the same way about you."

"April loves us." the teenager said hopefully.

"April has known us since before we were even really us, April belongs to us. But this girl, we don't even know where she's really from."

"I know that, Sensei. We may not know where she's from, but we can guess where she's going, can't we?" he stood up from the table and went back to his place in the recliner. Eva's hand groped across the empty blanket.

Neither master or student moved towards her.

"You are going to feel so much better after a shower." April assured me, taping the plastic bag to my cast.

"I sure hope so." I mumbled. I wasn't sure I could feel much worse. Splinter and Raphael had been terribly silent all day, and I wasn't sure why. I looked at Michelangelo, and he could only shrug at me. Things had been uncomfortable until April came and whisked me off to her apartment.

"Then I'm going to trim your hair and do your nails. You need to girl yourself up, Eva. Really, you'll feel great." she smiled at me, and I felt myself beaming back. She was so bright and bubbly, I could see why the turtles just adored her.

She was right, the shower was amazing. The steam rose up around me, and I felt like all the grim and confusion was washing off of me. I tilted my head back, letting the hot water pound off my cheeks. There was nothing like coming clean. I was reluctant to actually wash, but I knew I shouldn't waste April's time. I awkwardly managed to get body wash onto a wash cloth and scrubbed myself down.

I washed and conditioned my hair, marveling at how smooth it was after. I wrapped myself in a towel and padded to April's bedroom. She plopped me in her chair and began blow drying, combing, and snipping at the ends of my hair.

"How do you feel about the turtles, April?" I asked out of the blue. She paused and then pulled her comb through my hair, slowly and thoughtfully.

"I think they're amazing. I've told you. They're good guys. Just because they look different on the outside doesn't mean they don't have... I don't know, hearts or souls or whatever you want to think of it like."

"I just don't understand exactly what happened to make them the way they are. I don't understand how that happens." she sighed and then began to tell me a long story, about a fire, an evil man, her father, and chemicals.

I didn't understand the science of it. When she told me about her father, she stopped combing. I squeezed her hand and caught her eye in the mirror. I tried my best to express my sympathy to her. She smiled wanly and squeezed back, before finishing up trimming my hair.

"So has anyone heard of this Shredder since then?"

"No," she shook her head. "Nothing. Nothing from him and nothing from the Foot Clan. I have no idea what happened to them. But I'm hoping that it's over."

"You know it isn't," I murmured softly. She sighed and let her head hand for a minute.

"I know." she agreed. "Something that evil doesn't just disappear. Now, Eva, I've got some clothes for you to change into, and then we're going to take you back down to the guys."


	7. Somewhere I Belong

I sat at dinner in the sewer. For the first time, I felt myself laughing at Mikey's jokes. I was starting to calm down at the sight of them being giant turtles. I was getting used to being called Eva. I was used to the weight of the bracelet on my wrist. The only thing that bothered me was the itching of my cast, and the strange, burning thought in the back of my head that I didn't belong here. That any minute someone would come and whisk me away.

Back to wherever I was supposed to be. Back to whoever had me in the first place.

April joined us for dinner. Splinter, April, and I all had chicken and rice and broccoli. The boys had pizza. The smell of it was starting to make me feel a little sick. I didn't know how they were able to eat the same things day in and day out.

"So I was thinking, guys." she announced just as I was scraping the last grains of rice from my plate. "I think that it's time for me to do a nation wide search of a missing persons database. To see if anyone has reported Eva missing."

"I've done a city wide and state wide search." Donatello reported. "I came up empty. No one has reported Eva missing, at least no one of her description. You'd think they'd mention her bracelet as an identifying factor."

"No one's looking for me?" the room fell silent, and I felt pitying eyes fall on me. "No one even cares that I'm gone?"

"I don't think it's quite like that, Eva." April said gently. "You don't remember so much, and I think it might be time for us to take you back to the clinic. I was hoping that your memory would come back itself, but it looks like something might have happened to you. A head injury or something traumatic, so if someone is looking for you, we need to get you back. So they can take care of you."

"Am I that much of a problem?" I looked around. Each of the turtles looked away from me. Except for Raphael. He kept my gaze, green eyes steady on mine. I looked at him hard, trying to read whatever was there in those eyes.

"I can leave. I've stayed too long, haven't I? I'm sorry. I'll leave in the morning."

"No!" Raph said too sharply. I jumped back, my hands falling from the table into the lap of the borrowed dress from April. My whole life was borrowed, I thought. Being here, eating this food, wearing these clothes. I know this is not where I belong.

"Child," Splinter reached for my hand. "We would never turn you out into the cold. You may stay here until we find out where is best for you."

"What if it's best for me to stay here?" I felt my lip quiver. April had braided my hair, and I felt wisps falling into my face.

"I'm afraid that is not possible." the rat responded softly. I rose from the table and hurried out of the room.

"How do you know?" Raphael demanded. "How do you know the best place for her isn't here with us?"

"Raphael, we've been over this. She isn't like us. She doesn't belong here."

"Come on, Raph, you know that." Leo reached for his shoulder. Raphael shrugged him off and rose roughly from the table himself.

"Our whole lives you've told us we needed to save and help people!"

"We have," Donnie swallowed the last of his pizza. "We saved her from the Foot that night..."

"The Foot?" April cut in. "You never told me they were involved. Are they active again?"

"All we know is we saw them outside of a warehouse, Eva was passed out, and we haven't heard from them again." Mikey shrugged. "We must have freaked them out with how awesome we are."

"But we've done what we needed to for Eva." Leo cleared his throat. "And now it's time to send her back where she belongs. She doesn't belong down here in the sewer, Raph."

Anger bubbled inside of him as he stomped off, headed in the direction Eva had gone. She had looked beautiful that night, with her hair pulled back from her face. He saw the blue of her eyes, and he felt himself falling into them when she was speaking.

Eva was sitting alone, on the cold cement, her back pressed against the rough brick. That black dress April lent her was getting dirty, but she didn't seem to care. Her face was buried in her hands, and Raph could tell from the shaking of her shoulders that she was crying.

"Don't cry, Eva. Please?"

"I can't help it!" she lifted her face, eyes swollen, lips darker, cheeks bright. She was beautiful when she cried. "I don't want to leave."

"No one is gonna make ya," he knelt down next to her. "You heard Splinter, we're not just going to send you out into nothing. We wouldn't do that."

"No one else cares about me, Raph." she wiped at her eyes with the heels of her hands, a gesture that seemed more angry that sad.

"Someone else does. They have to."

"No one cares about me like you guys do." she pulled her knees up to her chest. Raphael put his hands on her arms.

"Eva, please. Please don't cry." he hated begging, but here he was. He carefully pulled her hands away. "Eva..."

"It's stupid to cry, I know that." her hair was sliding out of the braid again, falling into her eyes. He pushed it back and caught her chin in his hand, tipping her face up.

"It isn't stupid to be sad."

"It must be. You're never sad like this, are you?"

"Sometimes," he admitted softly. "But only alone, where no one else can see it."

"We're the same, aren't we?" she smiled weakly. He nodded, returning her small smile. She let her face rest against his hand.

"I'm tired, Raphael."

"I know." he slowly stood up, his hands out to her. She gripped them, and he hoisted her up. "Come on, Eva. You're going to go to bed. And tomorrow, I'm sure this is all going to look a lot better. It's just been a long day."

When they made it back to the lair, the others had scattered. Raphael led Eva back to her cot, and left her to take off her shoes while he got her medication. She swallowed the pain pills with no complaint, and drank the cool water.

The girl stretched herself out on the bed. She laid on top of the blanket, and though she had said she was tired, she stayed awake, watching Raphael. He sat in the recliner, staring blankly at the television but not really watching it.

"Would you want me to go? If we found out someone was looking for me?"

"That's a complicated question."

"It has a yes or no answer," she countered. Raph could only shake his head.

"It's late, Eva, go to sleep."

She curled up tightly, finally climbing under the blanket. Raph reclined the chair back and turned his head to look at her. Those blue eyes were still staring straight into him. He smiled and pressed on finger to his lips. Eva smiled faintly, her eyelids finally pulling downwards.

He watched her sleeping again for a moment. His mind wouldn't turn off. What was he going to do when they found someone that was looking for her?


End file.
